Australian Ham Radio Discussion Forum ( AHRDF )

Hi All.

I'd like to introduce myself as a new member from Penrith NSW

I was bought up around amateur radio as a kid in Sydney in the late 70's and early 80's

My Dad had a couple of decent setups for the time at our houses in Pendle Hill, Colo & Doonside.

I have memories of something like a 40ft boom with a rotor motor on it in the backyard of our house at Doonside.

I have a large photo album here with hundreds of cards of callsigns and names of people all over the world & some of those are attached in the Google link on this post for you guys to see.

There is a pic of my Dad's call sign card in there too. He was 67W-302

I'm not sure what the R.F.C307 is, but am hoping someone can enlighten me.

I can remember as a kid people coming to stay with us from Canada, USA, Alaska & Hawaii that my Dad and Mum had met through amateur radio.

There is also a pic of my Dad holding my baby sister in 1980 with a radio in the background. I know I also have just pics of his Radio gear somewhere and have been looking for them, as i know there was a fair bit of gear in the pics.

My Dad was already not well in this pic & as he got worse, all of his gear was sold off & he passed in 1984 when i was just 10. My memories of the radio setup have faded a lot over the years.

(Link to Google files to view these pics is attached below)  ....... I have heaps more of these too  
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...sp=sharing


This brings me to today.

I'm 47 now and have been telling myself for 20 years that I wanted to get back into this & it's time to get off my butt and do it.

I am your guys worst nightmare now, as i know less than nothing, I just have an interest. 

I don't even know what band he used to operate on, I was just too young to remember, but i'm sure you guys will be able to fill me in.

I want to go through the process of licensing & then get myself setup.



What do I want to do with my setup once I get going with it?


Well a great friend of mine moved to Norway with his wife recently & we had been discussing a way we could stay in touch.

I'd love recommendations on what Band  you guys think would be best.

I'm also looking forward to the the community that comes with amateur radio & want to learn from you all.

Looking forward to chatting to you all.


Kind Regards, Jason

Jason

Welcome to the forum.  An interesting intro, to say the least.    Now for the bad news - but don't stop reading.   From what I can see, that is actually a 27MHz CB transceiver and thus it is likely that your Dad was an "Out of Band-er" / "pirate" operator back then - not he was alone in doing that.   He just wasn't licensed by the predecessor of today's ACMA. The equipment he used back then is not going to be particularly useful going forward.

You can take a different approach as thes days we have a Foundation Licence level, which is an introductory point in the Australian Amateur Service.    A bit of study from a book called the Foundation Licence Manual, an assessment under the auspices of the Australian Maritime College (seems silly but true), the issuing of a callsign upon payment of a licence fee, gathering the right equipment and antenna and you are on-air on one (-or more) of the allowed HF bands or VHF and UHF bands.

These days we have electronic QSL cards as well as paper ones, use different modes of operating - voice, morse, digital - which uses computers to make exchanges under human control - and so many things are different to back then.  I was first licensed in 1967 so I was around back at that time, still operating now and still getting a thrill from it.  Hopefully it does the same for you.  We are coming to a sunspot peak around 2025/2026 so radio propagation should be enhanced - making it a good time to get licensed and active on amateur radio.

Visit your local newsagents and see if they stock "Amateur Radio" magazine published every two months by the WIA - Wireless Institute of Australia - the last issue was Jan/Feb 2022.
You can get a bit more info on current technologies, transceivers, antennas etc from there.

FL manual : https://www.wia.org.au/members/bookshop/...php?id=113
It explains what bands you can use as well, but probably one of the higher HF bands like 21MHz will provide increasing DX access (Google "DX" if you need to).  
What you do and what band you use will be determined more by what antennas you erect than what radio you use.

That probably a good starting point but this forum has lots of members who can answer your questions as you proceed along your path.  Don't be a stranger.

73  Doug VK4ADC  ( and forum admin )